Ergo, it is extremely likely the human mind (consciousness) depends on quantum effects.

Why limit your 'Ergo' just to one mannic mathematicians meanderings. I suggest you top it off with String Theory.

--------------The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

I think not. If JAM doesn't think that he misbehaved, how can he find the evidence that others feel is proof of this misbehavior?

It makes a lot more sense for the accusers to provide the evidence, since they are the ones who judged JAM to be unworthy of posting at their blog. They made the charge; they need to back it up with proof. And, in my view, the longer they go on giving excuses for not doing that, the weaker their case gets.

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

One of the things I have noticed in blogs is the tendency to engage in "Shield Bashing". This is generally done by trying to frame the debate where the other side is expected to prove their point thus allowing the shield basher to alternate between laughing at their pathetic attempts and/or be indignant over arrogance of the presumptions.

I have been banned from Uncommon Descent and Scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy. I don't think my behavior warrented being banned in either case. I can (and have) presented the comment that got me banned from UD with minor effort.

I was posting to After the Bar Closes a while ago but quit doing so. Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise.

The "innocent until proven guilty" works both ways. Telic Thoughts should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

The case needs to be made by TT's accuser, JAM.

Unless, of course, you just want to believe what you want to believe anyway.

Have you heard of Bucky Balls? These are miniature soccer balls made up of 60 carbon atoms. They demonstrate EPR-like effects. The basic question is, why do Bucky Balls behave differently than normal soccer balls? Penrose offers it is due to their mass.

By the way, Penrose and Stephen Hawking had a famous debate over this issue in 1994. While Hawking didn't agree with Penrose, he didn't suggest Penrose's idea was "absurd". I would be curious as to what Hawking thinks about it today in light of advances in maintaining superposition longer and with larger massed objects.

Penrose has suggested an experiment named FELIX to test his hypothesis with a tiny mirror. The mirror is would have just the right mass to be in superposition for the forward going light beam but not for the return.

Buckminster fullerines don't behave like normal soccer balls because their quantum wavelength is proportional to their size (deBroglie's equation). That's essentially the best way for determining whether something will exhibit quantum effects. In addition, nuclear spin quantum computers have made use of a rather large molecule (like the one that figured out that 15 factors into 3 and 5), however, there's big difference between 1 molecule of a substance and 1 mol. I'm not here to debate with you the primary tenets of quantum mechanics; I know things like Schroedinger's cat are physical implications for the wave-like behavior of light and particles. (An aside: "Dead" is not a quantum state, it's a macroscopic description of the animal, what we're really asking is: which detector fired? That requires collapsing the wave function in order to fire the gun, release the poison, whatever.) What I called "absurd" was ignoring the effects of the EM potentials and interactions, when they are much more dominant than gravity. You can't just handwave it away and say it will be fine, especially when the quantum computer is immersed in a electric dipole fluid along with one of the strongest ferromagnetic substances. That's absurd. All of this makes it less feasible that our brain can properly transport quantum information.

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You are correct that currently it doesn’t appear we are capable of developing long term quantum memory, yet (we are working on it). However, we do know the photons can avoid decoherence for years. I don’t know if any scientific observation like this has been done for cosmic particles other than photons. Do you know of any? I will look for them.

Penrose argues against Strong AI. That is, Penrose argues the human mind can’t be a consistent formal algorithm. And pseudorandom generators don’t help (they are algorithms). Here is Planet Math's analysis of it. Penrose argues that Quantum effects are non-algorithmic and non-random. Ergo, it is extremely likely the human mind (consciousness) depends on quantum effects.

Whether or not Artificial Intelligence could have been accomplished without quantum effects has probably become a moot point since AI researchers are now designing quantum computers into their systems.

Photon states work differently than electrons, they're based on the polarization rather than the spin state. We typically refer to them as flying qubits, and in fact some basic quantum cryptography systems (random number generators, AEC transmission lines) have already been created (google Magiq). Unfortunately, as you know, lower energy photons (like the kinds that would be safe to transmit through the body) are absorbed and scattered easily by electrons. They wouldn't make very good transmitters in our bodies.

One of the things I have noticed in blogs is the tendency to engage in "Shield Bashing". This is generally done by trying to frame the debate where the other side is expected to prove their point thus allowing the shield basher to alternate between laughing at their pathetic attempts and/or be indignant over arrogance of the presumptions.

I have been banned from Uncommon Descent and Scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy. I don't think my behavior warrented being banned in either case. I can (and have) presented the comment that got me banned from UD with minor effort.

I was posting to After the Bar Closes a while ago but quit doing so. Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise.

The "innocent until proven guilty" works both ways. Telic Thoughts should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

The case needs to be made by TT's accuser, JAM.

Unless, of course, you just want to believe what you want to believe anyway.

Erm, I'm not understanding this at all.

When someone receives a punishment, when does it become their burden to prove they don't deserve it? Thats not generally how things work, anywhere.

Well, anywhere you'd want to emulate, at least.

--------------To rebut creationism you pretty much have to be a biologist, chemist, geologist, philosopher, lawyer and historian all rolled into one. While to advocate creationism, you just have to be an idiot. -- tommorris

One of the things I have noticed in blogs is the tendency to engage in "Shield Bashing". This is generally done by trying to frame the debate where the other side is expected to prove their point thus allowing the shield basher to alternate between laughing at their pathetic attempts and/or be indignant over arrogance of the presumptions.

I have been banned from Uncommon Descent and Scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy. I don't think my behavior warrented being banned in either case. I can (and have) presented the comment that got me banned from UD with minor effort.

I was posting to After the Bar Closes a while ago but quit doing so. Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise.

The "innocent until proven guilty" works both ways. Telic Thoughts should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

The case needs to be made by TT's accuser, JAM.

Unless, of course, you just want to believe what you want to believe anyway.

I think TP should be banned from ATBC. If he wants to know why he's been banned, just say "bad behavior" and let him prove that he didn't engage in any.

Note that I will personally define what constitutes bad behavior, perhaps next week, but I won't tell TP what my criteria are. ATBC will be presumed correct until TP proves otherwise.

Sounds fair, no?

--------------Evolution is not about laws but about randomness on happanchance.--Robert Byers, at PT

[Interesting perspective, TP. But I don't think that this is "shield bashing", as you describe it. This is a simple lack of evidence, rather than any attempt to frame anything. I'll try to be a little clearer.

JAM maintains that he got banned for posting comments that included arguing for cogent hypotheses and testing of those hypotheses. TT admins maintain that he got banned because of despicable behaviors. Unless arguing for testable hypotheses is despicable, one of those is wrong.

JAM could undoubtedly link to a message where he said what he says he said. That would be pointless. It would then become incumbent on the TT admins to point out the messages that they were concerned about. Which is what I, and others, are asking them to do now. Why not bypass the intermediate step?

As for this statement

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Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise.

No. The burden of proof rests with the accuser (you). As it does in this case. Show the evidence, and let the jury make up their minds.

You seem to be arguing for a situation where the persons making the accusation (TT admins) don't have to prove it. I won't even speculate why you would do that. While we wait for the TT folks to step up to the plate (or not), maybe you can expound on that interesting behavior.

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

Joy and MikeGene aren't any more capable of finding the comment(s) that caused the problem than you are.

Why not?

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You indicated that you were banned three times. MikeGene and Joy have offered explaination as to why they automatically enforced the ban on your two aliases.

But the ban wasn't enforced automatically, and their justification is entirely dependent on there being valid reasons for the first banning.

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If you want to continue to try and make a case, then it is up to you to make it. I already asked you once to provide a link to the first instance so I could judge for myself. You have yet to do that.

I have no idea when or what that first instance was, TP, except that it occurred before I was banned. Can we agree that TT is not nearly as tolerant as you have repeatedly claimed them to be?

And what about microtubules? Are you grasping the absurdity of the extent of Penrose's reductionism? How can consciousness be reduced to microtubules, if a fibroblast's "decision" about which way to turn resists such reduction?

Why microtubules and not the actin cytoskeleton?

Do you realize how ridiculous a mention of "cytoskeletal microtubules" appears to anyone with the most rudimentary education in cell biology? Can you name an instance of non-cytoskeletal microtubules?

Proportional, or inversely proportional? (And perhaps to mass rather than size?)

Henry

Sorry, I should have clarified. I said proportional when I meant comparable, and by size I meant volume. Essentially a 1000 kg car (average dimensions of 2m on a side) at 10 m/s has a wavelength of about 1e-37 m, or 1e-28 nm. An proton (1e-4 nm radius) moving at the same velocity has a wavelength of about 600 nm. That's not to say you can't see quantum effects through macroscopic objects (take NMR and spin-spin times), but it's a pretty good indicator of what basic objects are prone to quantum effects.

I will deal with the politics first and then with the science in another comment.

You wrote...

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I have no idea when or what that first instance was, TP, except that it occurred before I was banned. Can we agree that TT is not nearly as tolerant as you have repeatedly claimed them to be?

Actually, I have loudly questioned MikeGene about whether or not Telic Thoughts lives up to its About Us declaration multiple times. I have even pointed out the biased treatment of the Smokey verses Bradford discussions. I felt you two were opposite sides of the same coin.

MikeGene estimates Telic Thoughts has banned a total of 10 people (7 ID critics and 3 ID supporters) in the 2.5 years of its existence. You (with your three aliases) were apparently one of them.

Telic Thoughts is a pro-ID blog. In case it has escaped everyone's notice, I seem to be the only one who seems to care whether or not people from After the Bar Closes choose to participate in discussions at Telic Thoughts.

Jam, it is obvious that you have a biased opinion of Telic Thoughts. Based on your actions here, I would have to agree it would not be in Telic Thoughts best interest to reinstate your privileges.

If you actually wanted to come back, you missed an opportunity. It would have been relatively easy to convince me that you were unfairly treated if you tried. Had you done that, I would have tried to make the case that Telic Thoughts could use more balanced discussions. Besides, I liked "Smokey". I might have had a chance, but now, with the way you chose to approach this, I don't see how it would be remotely possible.

As it is, it looks like the shield bashing games will continue. After the Bar Closes will be smug in their presumption that ID proponents are arrogant and unreasonable. Meanwhile, Telic Thoughts will be smug in their presumption that ID critics are arrogant and unreasonable.

Everyone can continue to be comfortable with their stereotypes reconfirmed.

As it is, it looks like the shield bashing games will continue. After the Bar Closes will be smug in their presumption that ID proponents are arrogant and unreasonable. Meanwhile, Telic Thoughts will be smug in their presumption that ID critics are arrogant and unreasonable.

Everyone can continue to be comfortable with their stereotypes confirmed.

Oh well, I tried.

Self-fulfilling prophecy. If you act arrogant ("I don't need to back up that accusation!"), and then get deemed arrogant, whose fault is it, anyway?

And actually, we weren't asking you to try. Speaking for myself only, I am pretty sure that I was asking the TT admins to back up an assertion. I don't think you are arrogant, but I gotta admit I wonder why you would stick up for some folks who do seem to be...

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

Self-fulfilling prophecy. If you act arrogant ("I don't need to back up that accusation!"), and then get deemed arrogant, whose fault is it, anyway?

It is a double-edged sword. Jam is accusing TT of being intolerant without backing up his accusation. You are DEMANDING an explanation.

Which side is arrogant?

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And actually, we weren't asking you to try. Speaking for myself only, I am pretty sure that I was asking the TT admins to back up an assertion. I don't think you are arrogant, but I gotta admit I wonder why you would stick up for some folks who do seem to be...

I will deal with the politics first and then with the science in another comment.

You wrote...

Quote

I have no idea when or what that first instance was, TP, except that it occurred before I was banned. Can we agree that TT is not nearly as tolerant as you have repeatedly claimed them to be?

Actually, I have loudly questioned MikeGene about whether or not Telic Thoughts lives up to its About Us declaration multiple times.

Yes, but elsewhere, you have touted TT as tolerant.

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I have even pointed out the biased treatment of the Smokey verses Bradford discussions. I felt you two were opposite sides of the same coin.

What sort of coin?

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Jam, it is obvious that you have a biased opinion of Telic Thoughts. Based on your actions here, I would have to agree it would not be in Telic Thoughts best interest to reinstate your privileges.

So what? That seems obvious, since they seem to be far more interested in shield-bashing than in discussing science.

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If you actually wanted to come back, you missed an opportunity.

What makes you think I wanted to come back?

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It would have been relatively easy to convince me that you were unfairly treated if you tried.

What makes you think that I was trying to convince you?

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Had you done that, I would have tried to make the case that Telic Thoughts could use more balanced discussions. Besides, I liked "Smokey". I might have had a chance, but now, with the way you chose to approach this, I don't see how it would be remotely possible.

I don't think you would have had a chance.

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As it is, it looks like the shield bashing games will continue. After the Bar Closes will be smug in their presumption that ID proponents are arrogant and unreasonable.

It's not a presumption.

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Oh well, I tried.

I'm not willing to be as obsequious as you are to the TT crowd. Let's do science!

Or do you have too much invested in this microtubule hypothesis to discuss it with someone who knows something about the neuronal cytoskeleton?

I was posting to After the Bar Closes a while ago but quit doing so. Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise.

It is a double-edged sword. Jam is accusing TT of being intolerant without backing up his accusation. You are DEMANDING an explanation.

Which side is arrogant?

I don't care if I get an explanation or not, so I am pretty sure that my DEMAND is something that exists only in your mind.

In my world discussions are enhanced, and thoughts are even provoked, by providing evidence. This happens faster if evidence is provided without DEMANDS, but it can still happen if someone (like me, or k.e, or a number of others on this board) asks for it (politely, at first). If it is available, then it is helpful for the rest of us to see it, and then make whatever conclusions that seem to be warranted by the evidence.

So let's go back to my previous message, with the hypothetical scenario played out as you want it to be.

1) JAM provides a link to a post which looks reasonable.

2) The TT admins, if they want the evidence to speak for itself, would then provide a link to the post(s) which they found so offensive.

3) Evidence in hand, the jaded and biased and horribly arrogant crowd at AtBC can conclude whatever they can conclude from the evidence.

As I said before, why not skip the first step, since it is obvious to all (except perhaps you) that we must proceed to step 2 regardless of what happens in step one? But if the TT admins deem this to be arrogance, or an unjustified waste of their time, we are reduced to making a conclusion without all the evidence. I don't like to do that.

Do you?

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

Burden of proof might not be a valid concept here. It makes sense in a courtroom where one side has to win. Having the burden of proof means the other side is the default winner. But does one side have to win in an argument about whether a banning was justified? I think visitors to a site can distinguish a site with 'ruthless' moderation from a site with laissez-faire moderation without making one side the default winner.

My apologies. I had intended on making it clear that it was a false hypothetical.

In fact, I found my welcome to After the Bar Close to be very warm (Kristine offered me "Shimmies").

As penance, I took the time to find my first post here (it was the career survey). That turned out to be ironic, because as it happens I wasn't too happy at the time with Telic Thoughts. Here is what I wrote...

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Excuse me while I take some time to mope in my beer.I just said goodbye to Telic Thoughts after about 6 months of posting there.

BTW, I have a BS Electrical Engineering with an MBA. I put myself down for BS Science.

Don't get me wrong, as ID Proponents go, the TT bunch are pretty intelligent and most want to be open minded. You see, I like to think I am pretty good at getting to the heart of issues and pointing them out (my engineering training). I think I did a pretty good job. I bent over backwards to put it in terms they could embrace by accepting all base ID assumptions (even Dembski's "math"). To no avail. If it didn't support Theism it wasn't a "science" they could find acceptable.

I know better than argue with anyone about their faith, but I thought that maybe with a little open-mindedness and a firm declaration it's about science and not religion, that maybe, just maybe I could make a dent.

Oh well, pass me another beer, will ya?

The interesting part was the reply by someone named SteveStory...

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Telic Thoughts is a unique ID blog. Unlike all the others (UD, JoeG, FtK,...) they aren't scared to death of informed commenters. They don't ban people for being knowledgeable.

As far as I know. Which is really based on very little info. I've been to TT only a handful of times.

I based that on very little information. I posted about 10 times and all they did was move some of my posts to the 'memory hole'. That's a downright reasonable reaction. A normal ID blog would have disallowed 9 out of 10 comments and then banned me.

Buckminster fullerines don't behave like normal soccer balls because their quantum wavelength is proportional to their size (deBroglie's equation). That's essentially the best way for determining whether something will exhibit quantum effects. In addition, nuclear spin quantum computers have made use of a rather large molecule (like the one that figured out that 15 factors into 3 and 5), however, there's big difference between 1 molecule of a substance and 1 mol.

um....

E = h/t came directly from deBroglie's work.

"The de Broglie relations show that the wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum of a particle and that the frequency is directly proportional to the particle's kinetic energy." link

Momentum and kinetic energy are proportional to mass, not size.

deBroglie's equations are...p = hkE = hw

When you substitute 1/t for w, you get the form Penrose uses.

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I'm not here to debate with you the primary tenets of quantum mechanics;

My point is there is no such thing as a minor inconsistency in logic. You would not be the first one to attempt to hand-wave away the inconvenient existence of "quantum weirdness". For seventy years people have been waiting for the logical explanation to present itself. Penrose quit waiting. He accepted it as reality and built a consistent model to explain it all. The final piece was consciousness.

It started out as a mathematical curiosity. At one time it was assumed that any effort to tile a surface (e.g. a floor) with a limited number of shapes would result in a repeating pattern. This is known as periodic tiling. However, attempts to prove that mathematically failed. One day, someone proved that aperiodic tiling was, in fact, possible. The race was on to find examples. The first example had 20426 tile shapes. To make a long story short, Penrose found a solution that used only TWO tile shapes (he did it in his spare time as “a hobby”).

This still might be considered just an interesting mathematical curiosity except for two things. Ten years later, an “impossible” crystal formation was discovered. You see it was thought that all crystals had to be made up of repeating structures (periodic). An aperiodic crystal formation was discovered, it matched Penrose Tilings.

The second interesting aspect is that Penrose claims his solution couldn’t have been found algorithmically, i.e. Turing Machine couldn’t be programmed to find the answer not matter how powerful it was.

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What I called "absurd" was ignoring the effects of the EM potentials and interactions, when they are much more dominant than gravity. You can't just handwave it away and say it will be fine, especially when the quantum computer is immersed in a electric dipole fluid along with one of the strongest ferromagnetic substances. That's absurd. All of this makes it less feasible that our brain can properly transport quantum information.

Penrose admits that he might be wrong on the details of how. He isn't a biologist. But it is obvious Penrose is firmly convinced he is right about the quantum physics. The implications make others uncomfortable, but a lack of comfort doesn't hold a candle to experiment after experiment showing interconnected quantum effects are a reality.

Dr. Hameroff is convinced Penrose is right based on his experience in suppressing consciousness (anesthesia).

Do you realize how ridiculous a mention of "cytoskeletal microtubules" appears to anyone with the most rudimentary education in cell biology? Can you name an instance of non-cytoskeletal microtubules?

Here is one of many hits I found using the term "cytoskeletal microtubules" in a google search.

It was from The Journal of Cell Biology where they were distinguishing cytoskeletal microtubules from flagellar microtubules.

In that context it is a meaningful distinction. However, neurons lack flagella, cilia, and mitotic spindles (the last of which is still the cytoskeleton IMO).

Are you trying to claim that Penrose was distinguishing anything from flagellar, ciliary, or spindle microtubules, or was he just adding extra polysyllabic words to his tome?

IMO, it's just part of an attempt to obfuscate his sloppy equivocation between the cytoskeleton and the microtubule cytoskeleton.

Again, changes in the actin cytoskeleton have been implicated in neuronal plasticity to a far greater degree than the microtubule cytoskeleton (including the transport of mRNAs encoding beta-actin and actin-binding proteins), yet Penrose ignores it. It seems to me as though he heard about MTs first and can't be bothered with anything more holistic, even though emergent properties involving both are involved in a fibroblast moving 5 microns on a plastic dish.

If that can't be reduced, how sensible is it to believe that consciousness can be reduced so much further?

You wrote...QuoteBuckminster fullerines don't behave like normal soccer balls because their quantum wavelength is proportional to their size (deBroglie's equation). That's essentially the best way for determining whether something will exhibit quantum effects. In addition, nuclear spin quantum computers have made use of a rather large molecule (like the one that figured out that 15 factors into 3 and 5), however, there's big difference between 1 molecule of a substance and 1 mol.

um....

E = h/t came directly from deBroglie's work.

"The de Broglie relations show that the wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum of a particle and that the frequency is directly proportional to the particle's kinetic energy." link

Momentum and kinetic energy are proportional to mass, not size.

deBroglie's equations are...p = hkE = hw

When you substitute 1/t for w, you get the form Penrose uses.

And if you read my clarification you'd understand what I meant by "size":

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Sorry, I should have clarified. I said proportional when I meant comparable, and by size I meant volume. Essentially a 1000 kg car (average dimensions of 2m on a side) at 10 m/s has a wavelength of about 1e-37 m, or 1e-28 nm. An proton (1e-4 nm radius) moving at the same velocity has a wavelength of about 600 nm. That's not to say you can't see quantum effects through macroscopic objects (take NMR and spin-spin times), but it's a pretty good indicator of what basic objects are prone to quantum effects.

Another way to write deBroglie's equation is obviously:

lambda = h/p

Where lambda is the quantum wavelength. When the quantum wavelength of the object is comparable to its size (cube root of volume if you want), it will exhibit quantum characteristics.

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My point is there is no such thing as a minor inconsistency in logic. You would not be the first one to attempt to hand-wave away the inconvenient existence of "quantum weirdness". For seventy years people have been waiting for the logical explanation to present itself. Penrose quit waiting. He accepted it as reality and built a consistent model to explain it all. The final piece was consciousness.

Are you familiar with the story behind Penrose Tilings?

It started out as a mathematical curiosity. At one time it was assumed that any effort to tile a surface (e.g. a floor) with a limited number of shapes would result in a repeating pattern. This is known as periodic tiling. However, attempts to prove that mathematically failed. One day, someone proved that aperiodic tiling was, in fact, possible. The race was on to find examples. The first example had 20426 tile shapes. To make a long story short, Penrose found a solution that used only TWO tile shapes (he did it in his spare time as “a hobby”).

This still might be considered just an interesting mathematical curiosity except for two things. Ten years later, an “impossible” crystal formation was discovered. You see it was thought that all crystals had to be made up of repeating structures (periodic). An aperiodic crystal formation was discovered, it matched Penrose Tilings.

The second interesting aspect is that Penrose claims his solution couldn’t have been found algorithmically, i.e. Turing Machine couldn’t be programmed to find the answer not matter how powerful it was.

Which does nothing to address the point that I raised, namely that there's no way to express a macroscopic object in terms of a pure quantum state (instead of a mixed state). You seem (along with Penrose) to think that we can handwave our way up from QM with electrons to QM with mols of atoms. Bulk QC with large magnets This is realistically the only way to get even partial macroscopic entanglement: Large precision magnets, low temps, and photons. From the paper: "99.99999999% of the time a generously sized room-temperature sample (10^22 spins) contains no 100-spin molecules in the ground state a1, a2 . . . an, or in any other single one of its 2^100 quantum states." IOW: large molecule + room temperature = no entanglement

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Penrose admits that he might be wrong on the details of how. He isn't a biologist. But it is obvious Penrose is firmly convinced he is right about the quantum physics. The implications make others uncomfortable, but a lack of comfort doesn't hold a candle to experiment after experiment showing interconnected quantum effects are a reality.

Dr. Hameroff is convinced Penrose is right based on his experience in suppressing consciousness (anesthesia).

Again, maybe I missed it, but what was the last experimental quantum computation paper that Penrose wrote? Penrose can have all the theory he wants (gedanken out the wazoo); it's not discomfort if it doesn't describe reality, full stop. And this still doesn't explain why we can just handwave away EM interactions or temperature effects (how do you get a ground state in a 325K person?).

Are you trying to claim that Penrose was distinguishing anything from flagellar, ciliary, or spindle microtubules, or was he just adding extra polysyllabic words to his tome?

IMO, it's just part of an attempt to obfuscate his sloppy equivocation between the cytoskeleton and the microtubule cytoskeleton.

It has been suggested that I am wasting my time here. That may be true in your case, but on the chance that others are listening in I will continue.

You continue to make reference to Penrose. Penrose is not the biologist, Dr. Hameroff is. To avoid confusion, let me quote from a paper written by Dr. Hameroff and NOT the physicist Penrose...

III. The neural correlate of consciousness

a. Functional organization of the brain

Most brain activities are nonconscious; consciousness is a mere “tip of the iceberg” of neural functions. Many brain activities—e.g. brainstem-mediated autonomic functions—never enter consciousness. While consciousness is erased during general anesthesia, nonconscious brain EEG and evoked potentials continue, although reduced.[xiv]

...

Membrane-based neuronal input-output activities involve changes in synaptic plasticity, ion conductance, neurotransmitter vesicle transport/secretion and gap junction regulation—all controlled by the intra-neuronal networks of filamentous protein polymers known as the cytoskeleton. If simple input-output activities fully described neural function, then fine-grained details might not matter. But simple input-output activities—in which neurons function as switches—are only a guess, and most likely a poor imitation of the neuron’s actual activities and capabilities.

To gauge how single neuron functions may exceed simple input-output activities, consider the single cell organism paramecium. Such cells swim about gracefully, avoid obstacles and predators, find food and engage in sex with partner paramecia. They can also learn; if placed in capillary tubes they escape, and when placed back in the capillary tubes escape more quickly. As single cells with no synaptic connections, how do they do it? Pondering the seemingly intelligent activities of such single cell organisms, famed neuroscientist C.S. Sherrington (1957) conjectured: “of nerve there is no trace, but the cytoskeleton might serve”. If the cytoskeleton is the nervous system of protozoa, what might it do for neurons?

IV. The neuronal cytoskeleton

a. Microtubules and networks inside neurons

Shape, structure, growth and function of neurons are determined by their cytoskeleton, internal scaffoldings of filamentous protein polymers which include microtubules, actin and intermediate filaments. Rigid microtubules (MTs) interconnected by MT-associated proteins (MAPs) and immersed in actin form a self-supporting, dynamic tensegrity network which shapes all eukaryotic cells including highly asymmetrical neurons. The cytoskeleton also includes MT-based organelles called centrioles which organize mitosis, membrane-bound MT-based cilia, and proteins which link MTs with membranes. Disruption of intra-neuronal cytoskeletal structures impairs cognition, such as tangling of the tau MAP linking MTs in Alzheimer’s disease (Matsuyama and Jarvik, 1989, Iqbal and Grundke-Iqbal 2004).

Actin is the main component of dendritic spines and also exists throughout the rest of the neuronal interior in various forms depending on actin-binding proteins, calcium etc. When actin polymerizes into a dense meshwork, the cell interior converts from an aqueous solution (sol state) to a quasi-solid, gelatinous (gel) state. In the gel state, actin, MTs and other cytoskeletal structures form a negatively-charged matrix on which polar cell water molecules are bound and ordered (Pollack 2001). Glutamate binding to NMDA and AMPA receptors triggers gel states in actin spines (Fischer et al 2000).

Neuronal MTs self-assemble, and with cooperation of actin enable growth of axons and dendrites. Motor proteins transport materials along MTs to maintain and regulate synapses. The direction and guidance of motor proteins and synaptic components (e.g. from cell body through branching dendrites) depends on conformational states of MT subunits (Krebs et al 2004). Thus MTs are not merely passive tracks but appear to actively guide transport. Among neuronal cytoskeletal components, MTs are the most stable and appear best suited for information processing Wherever cellular organization and intelligence are required, MTs are present and involved.

MTs are cylindrical polymers 25 nanometers (nm = 10-9 meter) in diameter, comprised of 13 longitudinal protofilaments which are each chains of the protein tubulin (Figure 8). Each tubulin is a peanut-shaped dimer (8 nm by 4 nm by 5 nm) which consists of two slightly different monomers known as alpha and beta tubulin, (each 4 nm by 4 nm by 5 nm, weighing 55,000 daltons). Tubulin subunits within MTs are arranged in a hexagonal lattice which is slightly twisted, resulting in differing neighbor relationships among each subunit and its six nearest neighbors (Figure 9). Thus pathways along contiguous tubulins form helical pathways which repeat every 3, 5 and 8 rows (the Fibonacci series). Alpha tubulin monomers are more negatively charged than beta monomers, so each tubulin (and each MT as a whole) is a ferroelectric dipole with positive (beta monomer) and negative (alpha monomer) ends.[xxiii]

In non-neuronal cells and in neuronal axons, MTs are continuous and aligned radially like spokes of a wheel emanating from the cell center. MT negative (alpha) ends originate in the central cell hub (near the centrioles, or MT-organizing-center adjacent to the cell nucleus) and their positive (beta) ends extend outward to the cell perimeter. This is the case in axons, where the negative ends of continuous MTs originate in the axon hillock, and positive ends reach the pre-synaptic region.

However dendritic cytoskeleton is unique. Unlike axons and any other cells, MTs in dendrites are short, interrupted and mixed polarity. They form networks interconnected by MAPs (especially dendrite-specific MAP2) of roughly equal mixtures of polarity. There is no obvious reason why this is so—from a structural standpoint uninterrupted MTs would be preferable, as in axons. Networks of mixed polarity MTs connected may be optimal for information processing.

Since Sherrington’s observation in 1957, the idea that the cytoskeleton—MTs in particular—may act as a cellular nervous system has occurred to many scientists. Vassilev et al (1985) reported that tubulin chains transmit signals between membranes, and Maniotis et al (1997a, 1997b) demonstrated that MTs convey information from membrane to nucleus. But MTs could be more than wires. The MT lattice is well designed to represent and process information, with the states of individual tubulins playing the role of bits in computers. Conformational states of proteins in general (e.g. ion channels opening/closing, receptor binding of neurotransmitter etc.) are the currency of real-time activities in living cells. Numerous factors influence a protein’s conformation at any one time, so individual protein conformation may be considered the essential input-output function in biology.

Where lambda is the quantum wavelength. When the quantum wavelength of the object is comparable to its size (cube root of volume if you want), it will exhibit quantum characteristics.

Did you read the link I provided?

p = momentum = mass * velocity

"size" neither volume nor the cube-root of volume has anything to do with momentum.

From the career survey results, I would have thought a majority of the people in this forum would be explaining this obvious physics property to you.

Was I too polite?

YOU SCREWED UP! LOOK AT THE LINK I PROVIDED.

Do you see the "m" in the first equation under the words "de Broglie relations"?

"m" stands for MASS!

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Which does nothing to address the point that I raised...IOW: large molecule + room temperature = no entanglement

Do you see temperature in deBroglie's equations too?

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Again, maybe I missed it, but what was the last experimental quantum computation paper that Penrose wrote? Penrose can have all the theory he wants (gedanken out the wazoo); it's not discomfort if it doesn't describe reality, full stop.

It does describe and explain the reality of quantum effects.

Did you happen to read Penrose's book The Road to Reality? It came out in 2004. It is 1100 pages of step by step explaination of his detailed view of reality.

Penrose is 65 years old. He has been knighted. He knows he will be proven correct. This book should dissuade those tempted to suggest he got lucky again. After all, Penrose was right about Black Holes and aperiodic tilings. Why should he be correct in suggesting the obvious implications of deBroglie's equations are correct?